The Work of F. Derwent Wood (1904-05)

W. K. West

erhaps the most striking thing in the career of Mr. Derwent Wood is
the unusual rapidity with which he has made for himself a place of particular prominence among our younger sculptors. Within the short space of ten years he has advanced from the position of a brilliant
and successful student in the Royal Academy schools to the rank of an even more brilliant
and successful producing artist, whose works
are in general request and whose capacities
are widely recognised. This success has
been gained, moreover, not by any deliberate postponement of his first appeal for
attention until he had arrived at more than
usually mature years. He is now only thirty-two, so that It can be plainly seen that
he must have come before the public with
definite confidence in his powers at an
age when most artists are still feeling
their way more or less tentatively towards the
proper expression of their convictions — at an age,
indeed, when many men have scarcely decided
what are the convictions by which they propose to
be guided in their practice.

He was born at Keswick in 1872; but while
he was still a young child he was taken abroad, and
when he was nine years old he commenced his
education at Lausanne. At the age of fifteen he
went to Karlsruhe, where he remained for two
years; and then he returned to England. His
first practical experience as an art worker was
obtained in his uncle's potteries; but he worked
there for only a brief period. In 1889 he gained
a National Scholarship, and began a course of
study of modelling under Professor Lanteri in the
Royal College of Art at South Kensington; and
that he made rapid progress under the supervision
of this admirable teacher is proved by the fact that
only two years later he was able to take a post as
assistant to Professor Legros at the Slade School.
This post he held until 1893, when he became a
student in the schools of the Royal Academy.

His career at the Academy was comparatively
short, but it was exceptionally distinguished, and
culminated in 1895 with his success in securing
the gold medal and travelling scholarship for sculpture with a group, half
life size, of Dirdahis and Icarus.
During the period covered by his
Academy studentship he was working
in the day-time as an assistant to
Mr. Brock, and at night in the schools,
so that he was learning the practical
side of his profession under the best
possible guidance, and was laying an
admirable foundation of knowledge
upon which to build in after years.
To such good use did he put the experience which he had so far accumulated, that he was able in 1897, soon
after the expiration of the term of his
travelling scholarship, to gain an award
at the Paris Salon for a group. Charity,
and so to rank himself, when barely
five-and-twenty, among sculptors of
established repute. By this time the
preparatory stage of his professional
life may fairly be said to have come to
an end; he had acquired something
like mastery over the details of his
craft, and was well qualified to attempt
independent undertakings of an important kind.

Portrait bust of Lord Overton

When he returned to London after
his stay abroad, he rejoined Mr. Brock;
bat not long afterwards he was offered,
and accepted, an appointment at the
Glasgow Art Schools. He began, too,
to find that his services were in request,
and that there were at his disposal
many commissions for portrait busts,
and for architectural sculpture. So
with quite justifiable confidence in his
future, he took a studio and set to
work earnestly to realise his ambitions.
He had no reason to be dissatisfied
with the results of this venture; he was soon busy
with things which gave him plenty of scope for
the display of his capacities as a designer and
executant, and he made more than one success
in important competitions. As the outcome of
one of these competitions came a commission to
execute four statues for the Kelvingrove Art Gallery
at Glasgow; and besides he was responsible for a
series of figures for the adornment of the Central
Station in that city, for others for a large building
in Bothwell Street, and for busts of Lord Overtoun and his sister, which have been placed in the Bible Training Institute.

After this excellent beginning at Glasgow he
quickly found opportunities of greatly extending
his sphere of activity; during the past seven yeais
he has, indeed, multiplied the evidences of his skill
in many directions. There must be noted his
statues of Queen Victoria, for Patiala, India; of
Sir Titus Salt, for Saltaire; and of the Rev. C. H.
Spurgeon, for the Baptist House in Southampton
Row; his busts of Queen Victoria and Queen
Alexandra, for the Cavalry Club, Piccadilly; of
Cecil Rhodes, for Pretoria, Johannesburg, and
Kimberley; and of Sir Blundell Maple, for University College Hospital; and his delightful medallion
portrait in low relief of Sir Joshua Reynolds, which
forms part of the memorial recently erected in
Plympton parish church to the famous painter, who
was born in the schoolhouse beside the church in
which he is now commemorated. Then there is,
in addition, a considerable array of portrait busts,
among which those of Mr. Harrison Townsend, Signor
Arturo Stefirani,and Mr. Robert Brough deserve to be
specially noted. And there is a long succession of
statues, reliefs, and statuettes, like his Ophelia, Cupid
and Psyche, Leda, St. George, and the mural monument which has for its motive, Love and Life, Sacred
and Profane, in all of which can be perceived the
purposeful and intelligent working out of a very consistent aesthetic intention. Undoubtedly he has in
this succession of productions been guided by
eminently individual preferences, and has sought
for qualities of design and accomplishment which
would satisfy his own particular tastes.

There is one group of works — the four niche
figures for Shipley Hall, and the bronze fountain
for Wixton Hall — which has certain interesting and
well marked characteristics that suggest significantly
his tendencies as a decorator. It is possible, of
course, that these figures represent but a passing
phase of his art, and that the style chosen for them
is not necessarily one to which Mr. Derwent Wood
proposes to adhere, but they are not on that
account less deserving of attention. They reveal
the closest study of French decorative sculpture at
its most suave and elegant period, and they are inspired obviously by the
performances of those artists who brought into
their work in bronze or marble the same spirit which made fascinating the
piciures of Boucher and his contemporaries. Yet in the elegance of line
and the studied grace of pose and movement which characterise these personifications of Venus, Diana, Ceres, and Juno, there is
more than simple imitation of the productions of the earlier French decorative
school. Their suavity is not a mere convention, and is not gained by the
sacrifice of those qualities of design and handling which come from correct
understanding of nature. They lack no essentials of sound construction and
firm modelling, and there is a due measure of modern
realism in their interpretation of a traditional style. That Mr. Derwent Wood
has learned much from his French predecessors is evident enough, but not less clearly can it be seen that he has the good
judgment not to ignore the better principles of
the art of his own time, and that his thorough
acquaintance with the methods and mannerism
of one particular school has not had the efTect
of diminishing the independence of his effort or
of narrowing the scope of his observation.

Indeed, in his other works he proves indisputably
that he has a grasp of artistic essentials that will
always save him from sinking thoughtlessly into
imitative conventionality. His sense of character
is shrewd enough and his knowledge of nature is
profound enough to guide him aright in giving a
convincing expression to his ideas. His busts of
Mr. Harrison Townsend and Mr. Robert Brough
have, with all their distinction of manner, the
fullest measure of actuality; and there is in them
no suggestiorm that facts have been sacrificed for
the sake of satisfying the artist's preconception in
matters of style. His Cecil Rhodes, too, is sufficiently uncompromising in its statement of a
rugged, and in some respects inelegant, personality,
in its forcible presentation of a strong type, which
would have lost its meaning if its angles had been technical side of his craft
grows more assured he is
gaining steadily in the
power to put his nobler
conceptions into a credible
shape. His work has lost
none of its charm, none
of its ease and fluency,
but to these qualities has
been added something
which makes them more
persuasive and more
capable of creating the
right impression upon
people who are not con-
tent with simple prettiness
no matter how efificient it
may be in its technical
presentation.

One of the notable results
of what may be fairly styled
rounded off or its asperities smoothed away. And
in his charming Portrait Bust of a lady he has not,
by straining after excessive graces, missed those
small but appropriate peculiarities of feature and
facial expression which give to the work its value
as a likeness. In everything he does there is per-
ceptible just the right amount of discretion required
to guide his art into its proper direction, and to
prevent him from being led by his love of elegance
into characterless arrangements of line. Stylist
though he is, he is very far from being a slave to
tradition, and he has avoided hitherto all tempta-
tions to make an easy compromise with his artistic
conscience.

In fact, there are many signs that he is just now
making a definite step in the direction of robuster
and more dramatic performance. His recent achieve-
ments deal with motives which require for effective
reahsation a good deal more than a faculty for com-
bining harmoniously a variety of graceful details, and
which imply an understanding of great seslhetic
principles as well as of more or less exacting
intellectual problems. He is showing clearly that
his view of the mission of sculpture is becoming
more extended, and that as his command over the

Bibliography

West, W. K. “The Work of F. Derwent Wood.” The Studio 33 (1904-05): 297-306. Internet Archivedigitized from a copy in the University of Toronto Library.